Borderlands 2 – Legendary Item and XP Farming Guide

As some of you might know, I am good friends with fellow writer Cameron Morawski and tend to co op with him quite often. Naturally when Borderlands 2 released, we were fast on our track to platinum it with the usual gang. Shortly after getting the platinum, we started working on collecting rare and unique items, which ultimately lead to others asking for advice. Since the demand was so great, I decided to make it easy for everyone and create a handy little guide!

Unlike most of my guides, this one has been broken up into three parts. The first part is what farming is and what some of the items are, next will be the “perfect” or ideal build for farming and finally I will show you how I was going about some of these area’s. Let’s start by talking about what farming is.

What is Farming?

Farming is a term generally used in RPG’s and simply means doing repetitive work for some kind of goal. In Borderlands 2, this is all about leveling a side character or trying to get legendary items. Sadly most of these items won’t come easy, but with the right build the grind will be far quicker.

What are Some Legendary Items?

When it comes to games like Borderlands 2, you tend to hear rumors and talk about what some of these items. One of my favorite examples being the Teeth or Terra shotgun, which people always told me fired teeth. Since this really doesn’t paint a picture of what the gun does, give you any sort of understanding of it’s uses and ultimately leaves you confused, I made a video of a number of the weapons I came across while playing. Not everyone gets it’s fair share, but this should give you an idea of what to expect. More videos might be posted in the future or I might condense them all down into one super video.

Skull Squisher

Pitchfork

Gunnerang (it’s a homing weapon when thrown and will track down enemies to kill. If no enemies are around, it will just come after you.)

HellFire

Slagga (it fires several bullets for a fraction of the cost)

Baby Maker

Sledges Shotgun

Veruc

Teeth of Terra

Bonus Package (homing grenade that blows up, then spawns 10 little ones that spawn 10 more. Warning, this lags the game if used a lot!)

Hey, I'm the Associate PR around here, though I also do several other things. If you ever see or have a problem with the site, feel free to contact me as I'm usually around. If not I'm probably working on a guide on my Admiralvic PSN account.

To even get these things quickly, you got to reload the game, which makes online play annoying. Honestly speaking, a level 28 Bee will be useless at level 37 and will lead to you having to redo it at level 50 anyway. Also heads are absurdly rare. Between me and my friends, we’ve gotten 1 from Terra out of at least 300 runs.

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Naiamd (Author)

October 10, 2012, 10:07 AM

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Hey, I was just wondering if you would happen to have any terra siren mods laying around that I could possibly have? I’ve had no luck whatsoever getting the siren mod >.>. Psn:Naiamd_
Thanks in advance. :)

if I farm the orange grenade mod that is dropped by bewm and boom, will it be leveled. For example, most players fight that boss at right around level 4. so if I take my level 20 character and fight boom and bewm, will it drop a level 4 orange grenade mod or something to my level

It drops based off THEIR level, not yours or the purposed level. This is why I suggest you wait till you’re level 50 and beat the game, since it makes every enemy level 50 and makes it so you can’t get a drop lower than level like 47. (might even be higher like 49)

Thank you for the video. Maybe it is differen on the Xbox but the sand worms continuously spawn up to like five at a time and it seems like every time I fight him the acid only hurts his health instead of his shield. Also what seild are you using? The bee?

They do on the PS3 too, but if he can’t see you, then the game just “stops” (Single Player Only). If you move out from that spot, like 5 worms will pop out and he will attack.
You need him to “suck up” the acid by standing in the geyser. Failing to do so will cause him to lose life, but also fill up the place killing you at some point.
Yes it’s the bee, but any shield will work. The worms have a lot of life, so I was trying to make it easier for people. I could have just pulled out the BM and 1 hit them, but that doesn’t help anyone.

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Jon (Author)

October 26, 2012, 3:31 AM

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Ok thank you again. This has truly helped!

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Guillermol (Author)

October 29, 2012, 7:12 PM

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So i haven’t even been playing nearly enough as i should be, Should i focus on first beating the game and leveling up my character before i even worry about the legendary weapons?

I tried adding you, not sure it went through though. Sorry about that.

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chaosroulette (Author)

November 15, 2012, 12:35 PM

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Hey im having some serious issues getting a lvl 50 conference call to drop. i have a lvl 30 one on the same account and was wondering if that would prevent another from dropping? Or should i just keep plugging away at it and hope for the best?

I didn’t post a guide for it, since it’s like saying you have a better chance of getting a legendary weapon if you’re wearing a golden colored shirt. There is a THEORY that wearing the Blood of Terra and Hide of Terra makes the Varkid evolve faster, though the red text is also believed to be nothing more than a poem. Another THEORY is that he will only spawn with more people, which appears to be true. I’ve summoned Verm in 10 minutes with 4 people in the room, but I’ve also failed to spawn him after an hour in another room. I sincerely believe that every Varkid spawns with a set “evolve” pattern. By this I mean every varkid is set to “max out” at some point, so 1 varkid might stop at Badass and another at Ultimate, it’s all impossible to tell and purely based off luck.

Verm has like 15 legendary items attached to him, so he’s pretty important if you want any of them. 5 of them are head pieces, 5 of them are the legendary class mods, the Norfleet (rocket), Surprise Package (I think thats it and it’s a grenade) are said to come from him. I believe he has other legendary items, but the Norfleet is the only one people care about. Hyperious also drops legendary weapons, but it’s stuff you can get elsewhere for less work.

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Scottyl33t (Author)

January 11, 2013, 1:48 AM

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great guide. question, you would go after the legendary terra mods before the bee? seems like the bee would help :3

also in the dlc they gave us another invincible. Pete the invincible. in the torgue package. might want to check it out. I had the +5% rare drops thing on and I got nothing orange, so it may just be another worthless boss.

Well you have to remember that Terra drops a class mod every time, so there isn’t much luck involved. For that reason alone I suggest getting that first, though you can go about it however you want.

The DLC bosses have better rates (according to everything I’ve heard), but they don’t offer anything unique and are harder to kill than anything in the base game. They also have a 1 day lock, so I didn’t bother expanding the guide to include them.

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Scottyl33t (Author)

January 11, 2013, 5:22 PM

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Ahh. see I didn’t know that about dlc bosses. I spent like an hour trying to kill pete and was thoroughly disappointed in the loot.

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Benjywright (Author)

January 14, 2013, 8:24 PM

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Hey there, great guide, don’t suppose you have a spare Assassin Slayer of Terra class mod?

None left, sorry. Also you get a LOT of cash from weapons later on. I have some worth 100,000+.

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ajust916 (Author)

June 22, 2013, 8:37 AM

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Really like this guide and your explainations, well done. Am intrested to see/read your take on the new DLC, Tiny Tin’a Attack on Dragon Keep

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Garry (Author)

August 4, 2013, 11:21 AM

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I need some help getting the infinity pistol. If you could help me out sometime that would be great. (gdruryii). Im a level 54 commando.

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Keith (Author)

February 5, 2014, 1:15 PM

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Hi Grant,

Great article! Was wondering if you still have any Slayer of Terra class mods available for a Siren? My id on PSN is The11thLetter

Thanks!

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Eric (Author)

April 17, 2014, 3:31 PM

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I’m having trouble. Just killed bnker picked up an item then quit and saved. Came back and no bnker just continuing the main story line. What am I doing wrong? I’m on ps3 by the way. Need your help and suggestions, thanks.

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